By Tiernan Ray

Intel's head of its mobile phone efforts, Mike Bell, kicked off the company's keynote.

I'm at Intel's (INTC) press conference at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show at Mandalay Bay, where we are being treated to Two Gallants's “You Losin' Out.”

Video is coming up. Something about the Notre Dame Vs. Army football match of 100 years ago, one of the original “game changers.”

Mike Bell, head of Intel's mobile efforts, comes up to applause. He says Intel is beginning to take advantage of the promise of delivering on the company's leading-edge technology.

Let's talk about phones, he says. The company now has seven smartphone designs in the marketplace. It was a great start, he says. Bell goes through how the devices stack up. He cites a quote from Anandtech, saying the Motorola “Razr i” using Intel's Atom chip is ahead of other devices in performance. The device gets over 8 hours of battery life versus just over 7 hours for the “Razr M” using Qualcomm's (QCOM) chip.

Now he's introducing a new reference platform using the code-named “Lexington.” Officially, it's the Atom Z2420.

It is a 1.2 gigahertz Atom tuned to Google's (GOOG) Android. The platform also includes Intel's own modem chip. It is oriented toward cheaper phones for emerging markets.

The device supports FM radio tuning, so you can avoid data network use, and supports the “dual SIM” model that's popular in some emerging markets.

Acer, Safaricom and Lava are the initial partners.

There is another new CPU coming along, “Clovertrail Plus.” It doubles the performance of the existing Medfield Atom chip. Later this year will be 22-nanometer Atom chips, notes Bell.

The 22-nanometer Atom, which Bell reveals is called “Bay Trail,” will show up in tablet computers this holiday from Wistron and other manufacturers.

Kirk Skaugen is up next to talk about the company's “Core” desktop and notebook parts. The lines of mobile computing are “blurring,” he says. Today he is announcing a “pull-in,” shipping in production today at 7 watts new “third-generation” Core processor, earlier than expected and at a lower wattage than the 10 watts that Intel has previously predicted.

The faster, cooler chips will be coming to ultrabooks and tablets, including a new model of Lenovo's “Yoga” convertible tablet/notebook for $799.

The new Lenovo 11-inch Yoga running Intel's 7-watt Core processor.

Skaugen says there has been tremendous momentum behind the ultrabook, with 140 designs on the market. He predicts touch-based systems later this year for just $599, down from about. $1,000 a year ago.

Skaugen picks up a new ultrabook from NEC being debuted this week that's less than half an inch thick. He tells the audience there are 150 million notebooks on the market that are three years older or more. He holds up one of these ancient, heavy notebooks. The message: there seem to be a lot of laptops out there that need to be replaced.

The Yoga opened up.

Moving to “Haswell,” the forthcoming fourth-generation Core, all ultrabooks running the chip will be mandated to have touch. And Haswell will have the “largest battery life improvement in Intel history,” says Skaugen, giving you all-day battery life. “You'll never have to bring your charger brick with you,” he says.

Haswell will really “unleash” the convertible laptops, says Skaugen. He holds up an internally-developed prototype Haswell, called “North Cape.” It is a 10-millimeter thick notebook that weighs in at just over 800 grams. It detaches the screen with one button-push to let you use a tablet. The device physically has an 11.6-inch screen, but as a tablet, it's able to do some pixel tricks to give you effective 13-inch display capability.

Skaugen turns to all-in-one computing, where the company is providing a reference platform for table-top computing. You'll be seeing a number of tabletop PCs, such as one announced by Lenovo, the “Horizon,” which has a 27-inch screen, and ten-finger simultaneous touch response, where you can play monopoly with a bunch on a large flat surface. Or play poker!

Next up, service providers. Skaugen wants to talk about Comcast Communications (CMCSA) which will use Intel's “Puma 6” chip for a home video gateway, which will deliver full premium video content and on-demand without a set-top box. Puma is based on an Atom core.

Lastly, Skaugen wants to talk about perceptual computing. Intel is going to add “emotional context” to the PC by adding natural human interfaces. He brings up Achin Bhomik, who has been developing the company's perceptual computing efforts. You can do a Google search, for example, using voice, and there is an expanded relationship with speech-recognition firm Nuance Communications (NUAN).

Skaugen is talking with Bhomik about how facial recognition can be used in place of traditional passwords. Many of these human perceptual capabilities will be coming first in computers from Dell (DELL) and then to other manufacturers.

With cameras and three-dimensional machine vision, PCs will see all of your fingers, says Bhomik, producing results that are much more extensive than 2D touch interaction. He demos moving his fingers in front of a laptop and causing an animated hand on screen to mimic his gestures. You can move objects in a video game with much greater precision, he says.

With machine vision, you can res yourself into your on-screen display, putting yourself inside a game or video, he says. Or, you'll be able to have your gaze tracked by the computer as you read “Where's Waldo?” and detect when you've “found” Waldo.

I sum, “Intel is executing,” says Skaugen, from Atom to Core to the new emerging technologies.

About Tech Trader Daily

Tech Trader Daily is a blog on technology investing written by Barron’s veteran Tiernan Ray. The blog provides news, analysis and original reporting on events important to investors in software, hardware, the Internet, telecommunications and related fields. Comments and tips can be sent to: techtraderdaily@barrons.com.